Hi everyone,
I've been re-reading my DANDR, the more I read it, the more I don't understand. My english isn't very good (actually my chinese sucks too). I'll try my best to ask this as neat as I can, pls be patient with me. It's a long question, so I think I better ask it step-by-step. I thank u all in advance for putting up with me

(1) My body can't turn the food I eat on this WOE into glucose because of the lack of (or very little of?) insulin, right?
(2) So, as long as I keep my fat-intake around 70% of my total kcal-intake, protein around 25% & carbs around 5% (from veggies). I'll be pretty much burning fat, right?
(3) Dr. Atkins says that there're "insulin-triggering-food". Is it possible that I have a slice of homemade LC cheesecake & my body (brain) is tricked by this sweet taste, thinks that it is real sugar & release insulin?
(4) Say that I eat a carrot. Can my body (brain) be tricked by that sweet taste (carrot's Glycemic Index is 71) & starts to release insulin?
(5) If (3) & (4) is possible, does that mean that the 70% fat-intake of my total kcal will also be turn into glucose & store as body fat?
(6) Dr. Atkins is pretty much against caffeine. He says, "Excessive caffeine may cause unstable blood sugar & should be avoided by those who suspect they are caffeine dependent. Everyone should try to avoid caffeine." Does that mean diet coke or coffee can cause some of us to release insulin?

I'm sorry for asking such "basic" questions but I just don't understand. The more I read about LC, the more I don't get it. I thank u all for your time. Any input, thoughts or personal experiences would be much appreciated.
Have a great day & happy low-carbing!

Bebe

Nat and others: Back me up on this and point out anyplace I go wrong.



No.

Carbs are always converted to glucose - even the carbs you are consuming now - either before or shortly after they cross the linings of the small intestines. Insulin is not needed for this process. The enzymes in your saliva start the process with many starchy foods.

Fat cannot be converted to glucose. Period.

Protein CAN be converted to glucose in the liver, but only if the blood glucose levels fall below a level needed to support the few cells in the body that must have glucose and cennot be fueled by ketone bodies.



Yes. If for no other reason than that the 30% NOT from fat is not going to be anywhere near sufficient to meet your body's energy needs. But there is still the question of whether it is body fat or dietary fat.



Yes. Personally, I think this is more likely in someone that is not used to eating artificial sweeteners (though I have NO data to back that claim up) for the following reason:

Consider a person that eats a lot of sugar or other very high glycemic foods and therefore the body is constantly called upon to produce a lot of insulin in a relatively short period of time. The blood glucose spikes can be minimized if the pancreas can get a head start on producing the insulin instead of waiting until the glucose hits it via the blood. Well, your body has an early warning system - namely your taste buds - to give your brain the necessary advance notice and your brain can release hormones to trigger insulin production. It's a Pavlovian response.

Thus, if a person that normally east a bunch of sugar switches to artifical sweeteners, their brain still gets the advanced warning from the taste buds and the insulin production ramps up even though the glucose never arrives. Now you have excess insulin running around with nothing to do but get you in trouble.

If my little theory holds any water, then this false response, which is learned behavior, should be able to be unlearned as well over time.



Possibly - the it might be more likely if the taste of the food is VERY sweet.



The fat will not be turned into glucose. Glucose must be turned into fat (triglycerides) prior to being stored in the fat cells. Dietary fat can be stored in the fat cells, in the presence of insulin, more or less directly.

When you get an insulin spike, your body's ability to draw fat out of the fat cells is reduced or suppressed until the insulin levels drop back down. During this time it is also possible to store some new fat in the fat cells. Because of the presence of the insulin which acts as a gateway hormone for the triglycerides to enter the fat cells for storage.

But this is a short term effect and after a while your body has scrubbed the excess insulin out of the blood since no real glucose was actually there (at least not in the anticipated amounts) and now the lipolysis process resumes.



No. Later in the book (see p189) he further explains that caffeine has been shown to cause a hypoglycemic response - a lowering of the blood glucose levels - and that this can cause the hunger and cravings normally associated with the typical blood sugar crash following the consumption of a very high carbohydrate meal. The oh-so-familiar "Chinese food sure fills you up but it doesn't stay with you" symptoms.

HTH

Thanks Bill. Thanks for the detailed answers.

I just realised that I asked Q5 wrongly. What I meant was, If (3) & (4) is possible, does that mean that the 70% of the fat-intake of my total kcal will be stored as body fat as well?
And the answer is yes but only as a short term effect?
(7) Is that why some LCers (maybe only as little as 0.01% of the LC population) actually gain a little weight on this WOE?
(8) Is it possible that someone might have this short term effect forever? Making them almost impossible to lose weight or even gain a little bit on this WOE?
I swear, that's the last question. Thank u. Thanks Bill.

Bebe

Bebe,

Re: (5)

It's possible that a small amount of the fat-intake (not the whole 70% by any means) will start to get stored but that this process will halt and reverse in short order.



Because of the pavlovian insulin response to AS?

No, I think for someone to truly gain weight (not just some water over the course of a week or two, quit and then declare that they "gained weight on Atkins") it would require serious problems with their insulin cycle couple with extreme insulin resistance.



I think these are two different effects - the first is an artificial response to the sweet taste from AS. Once identified, that can be controlled by avoiding AS. The second is a much more profound and involved problem. And, yes, I would imagine that it could last for a very long time - and probably evolve into something more serious.

A key question in this is: Assume we find such a person that gains weight on an LC diet, does this person somehow NOT gain weight on an equal calorie high-carb, low-fat diet?

This has been fascinating. Good questions disneybebe and great answers wbahn. Thank you for both of them. I have been trying to up the fat & just got flax oil. We'll see if that helps.

BarB

Thanks for the explanation Bill, I have been looking at my AS with an evil eye lately. I believe I may try to cut out as much as I possibly can (coffee is my main use..2 packettes a day).

I have used liquid sweetnlow for 4 years now. I put it in my water to get the water down faster and in some home made salad dressings. I've lost many pounds in that time and never found to have cravings due to "extra insulin" in my body - I keep my carbs to 20 gm a day ...could that be why I am unaffected by the AS?

I think that I use AS's in such small amounts, the insulin release is extremely insignificant if minimal...hardly enough to even matter. I think that when people overdose on powdered AS's however, take in lots in legal treats, that this does cause an larger insulin spike due to the maltodextrin in the powder and that it affects their weight because their carbs also go up at the same time. It is the maltodextrin in the powder AS's that cause stalls/gains if taken in large quantities I believe...and I believe it is the citirc acid/not the AS in diet pops that cause stalls.

That' is my opinion because of my experience using minute amounts of liquid As's.

As near as I can tell, I'm not overly affected by AS either. In the years leading up to LC, I consumed a LOT of AS (Diet Pepsi to the tune of 8 to 20 cans a day) but also a lot of sugar. So I think my body probably did not develop the Pavlovian Response to AS because it could never reliably count on a sweet taste corresponding to a need for insulin.

Used in small amounts, a person's response to AS is both hard to determine and largely a mute point - there isn't enough impact to cause any problems (unless the AS acts as a psychological trigger for sweets).

If you lined up a hundred people that have no noticeable response to even large amounts of AS, you would probably find that there are a dozen different and unrelated reasons. The same with a hundred people that have extreme sensitivity to relatively minor amounts of AS. What becomes useful, as a whole, is if there are two or three causes that account for the majority of the cases. Of course, even if one cause accounts for 99% of the cases, that is useless to the people in the other 1%.

I think the same for me. I never ate much sugar ever...didn't grow up with it. Maybe my body doesn't "think" that the consumption of a sweet flavor means anything at all - I really don't buy the whole idea that your body "thinks" or whatever, what I mean is "responds" in a certain way.

If that WAS true, then people who used to eat FAT with SUGAR all the time would fail in low carbing...
consumption of FAT would then "trigger" insulin release in expectation of future consumption of sugar?

Impossible. I don't think I believe in these "triggers". Go get a glucometer and walk by a donut shop - the smell won't make your blood sugar/insulin levels go up. If it did, diabetics would be having problems all over the place!

But I DO believe that only the actual eating of carbohydrate WILL cause an increase in insulin...anyone have a glucometer willing to test this?

on glycemic index...that's an interesting thing. What's really important is not that, but glycemic LOAD. Explained better than I could possibly summarize at:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/article.cfm?id=48

A person could gain weight from low carbing, if they were previously eating too little protein, and they gained lean muscle mass. Lean muscle mass will grow with adequate protein, but to really increase it you need to be doing weight bearing exercises at the same time. Consider the body builder, who consumes protein drinks etc. to help gain muscle. Their weight would go up as long as the protein and the exercise continued at the levels needed. I don't think anyone would continue to gain weight just by eating the natural unprocessed foods that our ancestors ate.

Beth

Pavlovian responses are very real - but they are often misrepresented. You can't pick two arbitrary things and create a Pavlovian response between them. There has to be the physical potential for a linkage and there has to be a very strong consistency of stimulus. And even then the existence and strength of the response is quite variable and usually overcome fairly easily once the consistency of the stimulus is removed.

It is my understanding that insulin release in response to AS consumption has been demonstrated in double-blind studies - but I don't have any specific references available.

And what you want to monitor is the insulin level, not the blood glucose level. If all you monitor is the glucose level you have to infer quite a bit and the construction of the experiment becomes a lot more difficult.

Glucose testing just tests the amount of sugar in the blood. What tests the amount of insulin?

N

Bill- Thank u. U did an awesome job explaning everything to me.
Everyone- Thanks for all the input
Happy low-carbing!

Bebe